How Can Sports Brands Like Skech And Intersport Become The Driving Force Of AOKANG?

Over the years, AOKANG, which has been firmly occupying the leading position of leather shoes in China, has begun to pform into sports fashion.

With the vigorous development of sports and health industry, how can sports brands like Skech and Intersport become the driving force of AOKANG?

See AOKANG international chairman Wang Zhentao, is the Lunar New Year's twelfth lunar month twenty-eight.

At the age of 52, he meticulously wore a shirt and suit, a bright red tie, and two pink iPhone7. His hair shaved on both sides and fixed with wax on the top made him look younger. - a few years ago, he still had a regular head.

As a helm of a 29 year old shoe giant, Wang Zhentao is more fashionable now, at least his AOKANG needs him to do so.

The opening speech of Wang Zhentao is the interview of the Zhejiang businessmen's Association which was just held the day before.

There, his old friend Ma Yun reminded the business owners: business is becoming more and more difficult in the next three or four years, and the good economic days are over.

Wang Zhentao, who has been struggling for nearly 30 years in the physical retail industry, is undoubtedly more able to feel the chill.

"After that, business will only get worse and worse, and single brands are going down. If there is no new brand, the downward trend will be very strong," he said to lazy bear sports.

On the AOKANG New Year's start date of the seventh lunar month (February 3rd), Wang Zhentao used two cooperation to inject new vitality into AOKANG - signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Belgian shoe and clothing giant Cortina and India outdoor brand Woodland.

Among them, Woodland has over 600 retail outlets worldwide, and the main product is an insulating water-proof type for extreme weather.

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This is not the first time AOKANG has been associated with sports.

As early as 2008, AOKANG attracted attention because of its becoming a supplier of leather goods in Beijing Olympic Games and signing Liu Xiang, an Asian flying APIK.

However, it was not until two years ago that the traditional footwear giant stepped into the sports sector for the first time in the form of agency. In August 8, 2015, AOKANG announced that it was holding the hand of the American sports shoes brand, Cage, to sell its distribution rights in some provinces and cities in southern China.

At that time, Wang Zhentao said he wanted to open 1000 stores in five years.

However, in 2016, AOKANG did not complete its own set of 150 shop targets. "By the end of last year, we had opened 130 stores," Wang Zhentao said. More than 100 of Skech's total revenue last year was less than 100 million yuan. It is expected that there will be a breakthrough this year and will grow rapidly every year in the future.

AOKANG's latest goal in sports is Intersport, one of the largest sports retail supermarkets in the world.

The Swiss sporting goods retailer includes more than 90 famous international sports brands including Nike, Adidas, New Balance and Arthur.

"We have started working with Intersport," AOKANG International President Wang Zhenquan told the lazy bear.

It is revealed that "in the future, after establishing long-term strategic cooperation with them, we can sell all the products under the Intersport brand, and now we only try 5 or 6 brands. The overall sales effect is very good at present."

"The whole category, multi fields and fashion movement are the future directions of AOKANG", Wang Zhentao said. AOKANG wants to do a "shoe industry ecosystem".

The shoe industry, founded in the late 80s of the last century, is committed to inject itself into sports, leisure and fashion elements.

In order to make the brand image younger, in 2014, even at the price of ten million yuan, AOKANG invited Kim Su Hyon, a Korean pop star who came from the stars.

According to Wang Zhentao's interview at that time, "with such an image positioning, from the product point of view, the R & D personnel will be pferred around the product and injected into fashion consciousness.

Otherwise, the brand is aging to a certain extent. If you want to bring it back again, the cost is very high. "

According to the current AOKANG strategic plan, the company will simultaneously create a AOKANG single brand Changqing platform and ESUs Cage and Kanglong (AOKANG's own fashion leisure brand) as the main fashion platform.

Previously, AOKANG's main footwear business was business men's shoes, and now it is biased towards the production and sale of leisure and sports products.

And in the operation of the new platform, AOKANG will continue to make up its short board in sports through equity participation, merger and acquisition, agency and so on.

In recent years, the trend of diversified consumption in Chinese market is more and more obvious.

In the field of sports goods, Anta sports, as a leading industry, set up a strategy of "single focus, multi brand and all channels" last year.

Since buying the trademark right and operation right of Fila in China in 2009, Anta, which is at the forefront of the "multi brand" strategy, has finally broken the ceiling of China's sports brand's 10 billion annual revenue in 2015, and has become the leader of the domestic sporting goods brand.

Anta, who has tasted this sweetness, started to run Japan's high-end outdoor brand DESCENTE in China at the end of 2016.

Nowadays, AOKANG and Anta once had many common faults: the main brand was aging, the brand added value was limited, and the gross margin space almost reached the top.

In 2014 and 2015, AOKANG's gross profit margin declined to below 35% for two consecutive years.

In such a situation, it is not advisable to fight against the main brand. Li Ning Co's failure lesson 7 years ago is still worth learning from.

Wang Zhentao knew well what Lining had done wrong.

Therefore, under the premise of consolidating the main brand, increasing more brands has become a competitive trend for AOKANG.

But on the choice of brands, the trend of polarization has kept Wang Zhentao vigilant. "Good brands, big and designed brands will get better and better, and small brands may not last."

Skech, who surpassed Adidas as the second largest sneaker in North America in 2016, seems to be the "big, design" brand in Wang Zhentao's mouth.

"Take Cage, you can't meet it. It's less than a month since we talked about it," Wang Zhentao recalls.

He tried out a pair of Cage's sneakers brought by a Hongkong friend and felt good after that. He then met CEO Chen Weili in the Chinese area through the Guangdong foundry.

Wang Zhentao revealed that AOKANG, as a priority distributor of the Cage Street store channel, can get more low-cost, cost-effective products and specialized offerings.

Before that, the price of Cage sports shoes in the Chinese market was generally between 600-700 yuan, and the highest price reached 999 yuan.

"Now Cage's product structure will make some adjustments, low price, cost-effective products can also be done in large quantities, directly compete with Anta and XTEP," Wang Zhentao said.

To a certain extent, Skech helped AOKANG stop the decline of gross margin.

In the first half of last year, the gross profit margin of AOKANG increased by 2.37% over the same period last year. Among other brands, including Skech, the gross profit margin was 41.19%, while AOKANG's own brand of AOKANG, Kanglong, and Firebird three were below 40%.

In order to better operate Cage, AOKANG has been sponsoring the Wenzhou marathon for two consecutive years since 2015, and Skech has also become the designated sports brand of VMA.

"AOKANG's marriage to Cage is a sign that AOKANG has officially entered the sports shoes sector," Wang Zhentao said in an interview with local media. "Traditional industries are bound to move towards pformation. Fashion creativity, tourism and leisure, physical fitness are all possible trends in the future.

What to sell and where to sell, that's right.

It's always the same thing.

After enriching the brand and category, AOKANG put another focus on the channel.

In October 2015, AOKANG tested its first comprehensive channel, AOK Mart, and plated it into Chinese, that is, AOKANG supermarket.

The name is more vivid than that.

The business area of AOK Mart ranges from 800 square meters to more than 4000 square meters. Besides AOKANG's AOKANG shoes, Kanglong's business shoes and casual shoes, of course, there are also the sports shoes of Cage, Woodland's outdoor boots and all the upcoming Intersport products.

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At present, five AOK Mart have taken the lead in Wenzhou five Horse Street, Keqiao Wanda, Jinhua Wanda, Fuqing Wanda, Ningbo Tianyi Plaza landing.

On average, the rent per square meter of AOK Mart is only 1/6 to 1/5 of the street store, while the Ping efficiency is half that of the latter.

Moreover, several AOK Mart rental contracts have been signed for 8 to 10 years, so as to apportion the huge cost of renovation.

"The annual sales of Ningbo's 4200 square meters AOK Mart is expected to exceed 30 million," Wang Zhenquan said.

Under the background of the weakness of terminal retail environment and the fashion and diversification of domestic footwear consumption demand, more stores and collection shops located in shopping centers will gradually replace street stores and small shops.

The diversion of consumption is a phenomenon that Wang Zhentao has long noticed. "The three shops in one place may be making money, the other one is losing money."

Concentrating more brands will undoubtedly help to gather people's flow and consumption.

From the end of 2015 to the half year of last year, AOKANG has eliminated 39 single store stores. Meanwhile, the rally has expanded from 408 to 553.

From the aggregate perspective, compared to the peak of more than 5000,

Over the past few years, nearly more than 2000 stores have been shut down, compared with 3018 in the middle of last year.

"We now have more sales in more than 3000 stores than in the past more than 5000," Wang Zhentao said. "Shop is not as good as possible, too much, no profit, but when it is finished, the business is finished. This is the balance."

But in any case, the downward trend of the retail industry is already an indisputable fact.

Wanda business, which has close cooperation with AOKANG, has also encountered many crises. In 2015, 56 stores were closed in Wanda Department, and there were serious losses in many regions. The decline was still in 2016, which even caused Wanda's performance to be deleted from the annual report by Wanda Group.

But according to the latest news of the Securities Daily, Wanda is ready to restart the department store this year, but the prospect remains to be seen.

Wang Zhentao's founder, Zhou Chengjian, the founder of Metersbonwe brand, resigned in November last year due to the company's poor performance.

Metersbonwe lost 432 million yuan in 2015 and closed nearly 1200 stores in the past 4 years.

Wang Zhentao once considered buying the shoe brand BELLE, which closed nearly 500 stores last year.

In this case, many brands turn to the Internet to open up another world.

As early as 8 years ago, Wang Zhentao opened a AOKANG flagship store in Tmall at the invitation of Ma Yun.

In 2015, its online sales accounted for 11.83% of total revenue, which rose to 14.33% in the first half of last year, but gross margins dropped from 34.53% to 34.53%.

AOKANG's performance during the double eleven period in 2016 also confirms this trend.

Although AOKANG's whole network sales amounted to 169 million yuan, the sales record was refreshed, but Wang Zhentao said frankly, "selling 500 thousand pairs of shoes a day, there is not much profit."

Before these happy and mixed data, Wang Zhentao once again sought balance. "Not the best e-commerce is best done, but the combination of online and offline."

In his plan, the electricity supplier will not become the future direction of AOKANG's future development. "No entity store has no fans, quickly gather fans through offline interaction, and activate these fans online.

Whoever owns fans will have the world. This is the trend in the next 10 years.

Over the past few years, AOKANG has clearly focused more on adjusting its internal organizational structure and improving its channels.

Wang Zhentao didn't want AOKANG to turn too fast, "too fast to die, but if it doesn't change, AOKANG will decline last year and the year before last."

In the beginning of 2017, Wang Zhentao was seen as a year of strength after the pformation.

But in the 2017, the global political and economic environment was more turbulent. The traditional retail industry was facing the impact of e-commerce. The sporting goods industry lacked the excitement of global sporting events such as the Olympic Games and the world cup.

After the pformation, can AOKANG enter the twenty-ninth year with a galloping 2017 to give a big gift to its coming years?

For more information, please pay attention to the world clothing shoes and hats and Internet cafes.